This year, Fire Prevention Week is October 8-14. It is the 85th event, making it the longest-running health and safety observance on record.

The fire department is joining forces with the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) to remind us of danger in the kitchen: the possibility of a cooking fire.

Safety advocates are spreading the word on the dangers of cooking fires, most of which result from unattended cooking.

According to the latest NFPA research, cooking is the leading cause of home fires. One out of three home fires begins in the kitchen, more than any other place in the home. Cooking fires are also the leading cause of home fire-related injuries.

When called to a fire that started in the kitchen, firefighters say the residents often tell them that they only left the kitchen for a few minutes. Sadly, thatís all it takes for a fire to start. Safety tips that firefighters and safety advocates will be emphasizing during Fire Prevention Week include:

* Stay in the kitchen when you are frying, grilling, broiling, or boiling food.

* If you must leave the room, even for a short period, turn off the stove.

* When you are simmering, baking, or roasting food, check it regularly. Stay home and use a timer.

* If you have young children, use the stoveís back burners whenever possible.

*Keep young children and pets at least three feet away from the stove.

The courageous voyage of Columbus, which inspired the world for centuries, has recently been the target of criticism by those who think a man from the 1400s should have thought more like a fellow from 2006.

It’s an unfair assessment of the man.

In 1492, when Columbus set out on his voyage of discovery, the Americas were unknown to Europeans and Asians. Although some evidence exists that the Basque and Vikings both had sailed to the Americas, no written map existed.

Columbus did what no one else had and he did what was inevitable: He linked the continents for exploration ó and exploitation. Columbus wasn’t the first person to exploit a discovery. Conquest and exploitation were a way of life among people who lived in the Americas long before Columbus arrived. Indeed, every discovery of every sort is followed by exploitation.

Columbus let the Old World know about the riches and opportunities of the New World. But he is faulted for things he couldn’t control, like the spread of disease, and for things that seemed altogether reasonable to a 15th century explorer, like evangelizing the local population. There is an implicit, and silly, assumption among the politically correct critics of Columbus that the Americas would be somehow purer had Columbus not explored there. But the fact is, it was inevitable that the continents would be linked, if not because of Columbus, perhaps at the hands of some other, even more politically incorrect human.

Columbus was a man whose own vision and courage set in motion an entire world history. That is an incredible accomplishment.

The National Health and Nutrition Survey published in Hypertension identifies sleeplessness as a significant risk factor for high blood pressure.

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center say this is the first study that shows a relationship between short sleep duration and high blood pressure.

Included in the survey were people ages 32 to 59 who got five hours of sleep or less a night. They were more than twice as likely to develop hypertension than those who got the recommended norm of seven to eight hours. The difference remained even after controlling for known hypertension risk factors.

On the other hand, people who got nine hours of sleep were no less likely to develop high blood pressure than those who got seven or eight hours.

Many conditions contribute to high blood pressure, such as obesity, but lack of sleep appears to be an independent cause. Normally during sleep the heart rate and blood pressure are lower. In people deprived of sleep over a long period of time, however, the work done by the heart increases. This can lead to irreversible changes in the heart and blood vessels.

The study shows that 50 to 70 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders that are often not treated. The disorders include obstructive sleep apnea, chronic insomnia, and restless leg syndrome, according to Tufts University.

Sleep disorders and deprivation are estimated to cost $150 billion in business productivity, $48 billion in vehicle accidents involving tired drivers, and $16 billion in medical care for sleep disorders.

A mnemonic is a rhyme or formula used to assist in remembering facts.
For example, many remember how to adjust their clocks for daylight savings
time with the formula: Spring forward, fall back. Other mnemonics use the
first letter of a series of words to form a new word. For example, the
admonition to writers is KISS — Keep it sweet and simple.
Below are mnemonics common in some circles, but less well known generally.
Combine your knowledge with the process of elimination to match them.

A. Order of British peerage.
B. Names of the Great Lakes.
C. Treatment for a sprain.
D. Colors in the visible spectrum.
E. The names of the planets in order outward from the sun.
F. Types of skin cuts.
G. Order for algebraic operations.
H. Lines of the treble clef.

Pre-metric measurements had some interesting, if inexact, origins. Though they have been standardized in countries that use them, they are still difficult for the rest of the world to understand, and even more difficult to explain. For example:

The Foot. This unit of measurement was determined by the length of King Charlemagne’s foot and modified in 1305 to be 36 barleycorns laid end to end. (No measurement for the barleycorn is given.)

The Inch. The width of King Edgar’s thumb was officially designated as an inch. It was three barleycorns across.

The Yard. The distance from King Henry I’s nose to his fingertips. The distance is also twice as long as a cubit.

The Mile. In the Roman legionary, the mile was the distance covered by 1,000 double steps. Queen Elizabeth added more feet so the mile would equal eight furlongs.

The Furlong. The length of a furrow a team of oxen could plow before resting.

The Acre. The amount of land a yoke of oxen could plow in one day.

The Fathom. The span of a seaman’s outstretched arms; 880 fathoms make a mile.

The National Geographic News Service, which collected this information, says the metric system has a more scientific origin, though the common person may think it almost as difficult to understand.

The Metric System. Based on the meter, which is defined precisely as 1,650,763.73 wave lengths of orange-red light emitted by the krypton-86 atom, or originally one-ten-millionth of the length of the longitude from the North Pole to the equator. The meter is exactly 39.37 inches. Or it measures about 118 barleycorns, however you choose to think about it that way.

A survey of 150 information technology managers at Sunrise Software, a British company, shows that printer issues were the most common reason for a help desk call. But the survey also shows that in any given month, more than half of the service people had to handle various food-related problems. They encountered everything from potato chips in a CD drive, to keyboards ruined by spilled coffee and PCs melted to desks by an unknown substance. According to Best Buy’s Geek Squad, which services small business and home offices, keyboards are often rendered unusable by crumb buildup, and spills and odors from decaying food particles.

A recent survey shows that only 36 percent of businesses employing up to 100 people have a Web site. The other two-thirds should have one. A presence on the Web provides information about the business to prospective customers, suppliers and employees. Even a little information about the business is better than being nonexistent on the Web.

Today you can set up a site without technical help or Web hosting costs.

First: Buy a domain name (like yourcompany.com). To do it, visit any of the thousands of online registrars such as godaddy.com, aplus.net, networksolutions. com. Search for the domain name you want. If it’s already taken, type in another, then click “Proceed to Checkout.” The cost ranges from $6 to $10 a year to secure a domain.

Second: Find a place to host your site. Several companies now provide Web hosting services free of charge. Visit sites such as Microsoft’s weebly. com or synthasite.com. You can also buy your domains at these sites. Like all the ‘build it online’ services, you don’t need any technical knowledge at all to build an attractive Web site.

Third: Set up your site. A basic site includes a welcoming home page, a page that describes your business, and a contact page that tells how to reach you.

You can add to the pages by typing in text or dragging and dropping graphics. One free and easy way to improve your design is to use HTML coding, but you don’t have to know the codes, says

The Wall Street Journal. Many sites offer handy blocks of html that you can plug into your site as easily as copying and pasting text.